Deforestation takes flight again in the Amazon

Last week, as some of us were heading off for the long holiday weekend (Easter is a holiday here in Brazil), the Brazilian government was quietly releasing deforestation trends showing an increase in deforestation for the first time in five years.

These numbers use the DETER rapid response satellite system, a system that provides estimates of deforestation rates every month. Over the time period documented, August 2012 to February 2013, the rates increased an estimated 26.82% and an area of the Amazon larger than the size of the city of London disappeared.

In absolute numbers, that means 1,695 square kilometers (654 square miles) of forest have disappeared. That equals an area the size of 237,000 soccer fields.

The state of Maranhão saw the biggest increase (121%), followed by Tocantins (110%). However, Mato Grosso state continued to top the list of forest destruction with 734 square kilometers of forest lost.

The increase in deforestation rates can be directly attributed to the Brazilian government’s systematic dismantling of the laws and agencies that protect the Amazon. These changes opened up the Amazon for destruction, making the current citizen’s initiative for Zero Deforestation Law in Brazil even more necessary.

President Dilma Rousseff’s approval of a new Forest Code, a law that provides amnesty for crimes committed after 2008 in the Amazon and reduces large areas of protected land, paved the way for the increase in deforestation. The president also structurally weakened government agencies like IBAMA, the federal environmental enforcement agency, so unfortunately it won’t be a surprise if deforestation continues to rise in the Amazon.

More than 800,000 Brazilians have already signed onto a citizen’s initiative calling for a Zero Deforestation law that would offer full protection for the Amazon. With the president’s support this could become law. Greenpeace is calling on Rousseff to support a law for Zero Deforestation in Brazil.

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(Unregistered) blankface
says:

Sun Wu, this is not the fault of Greenpeace. This is the fault of corporations, and governments which kowtow to them, wishing to make an ever greater...

Sun Wu, this is not the fault of Greenpeace. This is the fault of corporations, and governments which kowtow to them, wishing to make an ever greater monetary profit at the expense of environmental concerns which wind up effecting every global citizen. It is unfair to place the blame on Greenpeace, a stalwart supporter of the environment since its inception, instead of placing the blame on those who stand to gain the greatest economic benefit to the deforestation which is occurring. When governments are largely held accountable by corporations and corporate money rather than the average citizen, it can hardly be expected that any alternative would occur. It is because of Greenpeace, and other organizations with similar aims, that deforestation is still a concern instead of becoming ancient history when no forest will be left to preserve, and all of humanity and plant and animal wildlife is no longer around to worry about what we should have long ago done to prevent our own destruction from occurring.

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(Unregistered) Sun Wu
says:

Yes...of course.

Great opportunity to anounce victories on a daily basis though, don't you think?

And great opportunity ...

Yes...of course.

Great opportunity to anounce victories on a daily basis though, don't you think?

And great opportunity for Greenpeace to negotiate and feel important on a daily basis, correct?

Only question: WHAT ARE ALL THOSE DAILY VICTORIES ACTUALLY WORTH with e.g. APP having cleared all forests in its supply-chain before they started to negotiate?

...and what harm is being done with Greenpeace e.g. certifying APP's future strategy to be sustainable with APP having already cut down all its forests...

...and, as we all should know by now, will start to cut down trees as soon as they need more pulp?

Is it legitim to ask if all these victories anounced are anounced because of having achieved something...or rather to pretend having achieved something with Greenpeace in an urgent need of legitimization itself after years of 'creative communication' and the fact some childish Facebook-reality seems to have taken over in Amsterdam?